Well Worth A Gamble...!

Last Friday my son's band Casino played another Glasgow gig in a place called The Box in Sauchiehall Street. My daughter and her hubby were up from London visiting so we went through to catch the show. It was the first time Kerri and James were seeing them live, and only the 3rd time for me. And what a show it was.

Formed just a year ago their reputation has soared successfully. The lead singer, Ross Telfer, writes songs of varying genres and is a bit of a perfectionist. Tomorrow they finish their studio recording of The High, plus a video to boot for their website.

Rarely do we see such interaction with fans. They play the audience slickly and deliver every time. They even dedicated a song to me, sacrificing this for a more popular request, just out of pure appreciation for my creative advice and opinions. Bless their 'ickle talented hearts. This Saturday they play on home turf at the Dobbie Hall which is a 5 min walk from my house. I'm so excited! Anyhow, I'll leave you with a few pics from the gig.

1: The band warming up with their new song: Million Miles From You. Another catchy number!

2: My son Ross (drummer) having a 'hairy moment' when his hat fell off revealing his sweaty head!

3: The Box had these huge screens all over the walls so those in the back lounges catch the show, too!

4: A further away shot. Yes, there were old fogies as well as me there to cheer on the boys!

5: The murals in the place were phenomenal. This one of Bowie and Tom York was my favourite.

6: An embarrassing moment for Ross when a young girl at the gig bought a rose from a passing gypsy and handed it to him when he went for a fag after the show!

7: I was annoyed when this came out 'blurry' as it advertised their band appearance!

8: When this chap arrived to dismantle the equipment, we couldn't believe how much like Frankie Boyle he looked. (Scottish comedian).

10: My son-in-law, James giving us his own one man show of stretching his skin to buggery!

10: And to finish with, me and my darling daughter catching some cooling air on Glasgow's infamous street....!

And if all those pictures don't convince you - double click on the video at the top right of my blog for the full version of their Waiting Up video!

Chip Chopped!

I was reading an article in a magazine in my doctor's surgery recently and got a laugh at it. It was about a chip shop in Northampton, I think it was. Staff had been on an environmental health course and it led to the banning of an old dear in the fairly close by nursing home, from buying hot foodstuffs.

For a couple of years an old bloke of 78 had been making the journey every Friday evening for him and a bunch of his friends, for suppers as a treat. The old dear was more abled bodied than the others and quite happily made the journey on his own. It gave him a little sense of worth and the chippie staff adored him.

After the course, the rather stuffy jobsworth chippy boss said that because he was rather slow on his old legs these days, the journey that would take a fit person 3 minutes to make back home was actually taking him 10 minutes and as the suppers would therefore be colder, was a risk to health - epsecially old dears! Because the old guy always phoned ahead with the order, they knew he took about 10 mins to arrive. It's bureaucracy gone deep fried nuts! What a bloody insult to the elderly.

Now, he still makes the journey but only to buy other stuff like sauces and sweets ect. That little journey broke up part of his day. Apparently, the staff now deliver it to the nursing home personally. The old guy took it as gallantly as he could and joked about how he's learning to rollerblade! I can't understand it myself. I used to work in a chippy, many many, moons ago and know for a fact that all it takes is a few extra sheets of paper and it's insulated for at least a half hour - still even burning the gob off you at that. What I find really ironic is that most old dears wait for their food to cool down before eating it anyway. God, the amount of times my old dad used to eat cold meals if there was anything distracting on the telly. I can just hear him coming out with his favourite sentence when faced with pettiness such as this:

"Whit? A load of b*****d's nonesense!"

With loads of condiments on top, too!

You'd 'ink There'd Been One Handy...!

In between catching up with some posts here, I've been listening to my son's band's last Falkirk live gig. So far they have only managed 3 songs on studio recordings, that have been released on their interwebby thingy. They have written and played a lot more, so I'm catching up on the songs 'still to be released' so to speak (as I HATE going to gigs where I don't know ALL of the songs). Anyhow, I'm doing my best to write the words down to learn for their forthcoming big Glasgow gig on the 24th of this month. But my search for a pen to scrawl down what I think the words may be, was initially futile.

I mean in the WHOLE of my upstairs' rooms there wasn't a pen! In this world of text or type communication and wee things you shove in the computer that hold all of your personal and precious citings, that you can lose easily (I found Ross's one in a bag of crisps he was eating at the comp when it 'went missing') is a pen so hard to come across? I don't think he has used one since leaving high school. Has my house become so bereft of simple beginnings that now pens are becoming short...? I'm off to Asda tomorrow for twenty bundles of the best, cheapest ones they have and planking one in every room. (Not that I have 20 rooms, but you know what I mean - a few spare for the (ahem!) conservatory and extension that Camelot have planned for me). By the way, I'm hoping the lines:

"Burned my girl with your silver bagette-ee, break down though with Walter and Betty" aren't actually what I'm hearing....!

Anyhow - I think I'll now go and see if it's safe to venture back downstairs. Yes, the boys have all been watching the Jackson memorial on telly. Sadly, (for some) I've never been a fan, although I admit he did write a fine tune or two. None however, made it into my record collection. But the bloke has been tabloid material for yonks now - for one reason or another - and I sincerely think he was a mighty fine father. I thank my blogroll for not blogging about him, (so far) it kind of spared my replies. I've never understood a bloke who dangles a baby from a balcony. I think the kid he dangled was called Blanket - which would have been a handy thing at the time if he had have fallen! He was a bit strange, though, and I often wondered what he was all about. Too much money I suppose. Had he stuck to just singing and touring, maybe I'd have appreciated him more. But he kinda struck me as the kind who would be happy sitting under a bridge calling 'Who goes there...!?'

If anyone asks - you've not seen me - okay!